


From the Rain

by Trixen



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:50:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4694414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixen/pseuds/Trixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn remembers more than just fifteen years...</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Rain

_She can’t stop shaking and_  
 _I can’t stop touching her_  
  
 _Every time she sneezes, I believe its  love_  
 _And oh lord, I’m not ready for this sort of thing_  
 _She’s talking in her sleep_  
 _It’s keeping me awake and Anna begins to toss and turn_  
 _And every word is nonsense but_  
 _I understand_  
  
“Anna Begins” – Counting Crows  
  
  
  
Dawn remembers thousands of years.  
  
She’s only supposed to remember fifteen.

  
 + + +  
  
The smell of the waxed floors starts to get to her as she walks across the room, mingling, talking. Like rubber bands and shiny glue, it fills her nostrils and she blinks, tugging on the ends of her hair and feeling the slight sting of her scalp. It reminds her of the summer and of sweaty nights on the grass when she knew he was pulling out strands of hair… and it didn’t matter. Nothing *did* matter then, though. Except dead sisters and promises.  
  
Glancing across the room, over the heads of Xander and Anya’s relatives, she sees Spike and his date, lounging by the punch bowl. Dawn had some of it earlier, and the sticky residue still clings to her teeth. Licking them nervously, she watches Spike’s eyes follow the motion of her tongue and pretends that the throb in her belly is hunger.   
  
Her dress slips and slides against naked flesh as she steps over to the door and gazes out at the rain.   
  
Her first time was in the rain.  
  
((Two weeks after her sister died. She squelched through the downpour to the crypt, and only realized that Spike was outside, a second before she stepped *inside*. Staring dumbly at him, she watched as he walked over the soggy cemetery, a bottle in his hand- limping slightly from his still raw injuries. Not sure what he was going to do, she followed him for long moments, the sheet of her hair hanging down over dripping shoulders. The taste of the rain was on her lips when he finally spun around and snarled at her.  
  
“You shouldn’t be here.”  
  
“And why not?” she flung back at him, acutely aware of his hot eyes and powerful hands, which were tightened in fists of rage. He had been like this ever since it happened, and she supposed he was going to stay that way. She didn’t mind exactly. Everything was harsh without her. Everything was silent without her.   
  
“Because,” he answered roughly, gripping her arm fiercely. He began to walk, hauling her next to him. Dawn made no sound, other than to whisper,  
  
“You’re hurting me.”  
  
“Good,” he murmured between clenched teeth. “Maybe it’ll knock some sense into you, you dumb chit.”  
  
“I miss her too, Spike,” she cried low. “Do you think you’re the only one feeling sad?”  
  
“Sad?” he laughed, and yanked her against him, tipping her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “You think I’m sad, Dawn? I couldn’t give a shit about your sister. I’m a fucking vampire, darling. You think we have feelings?”  
  
“Yes,” she replied bravely, the wet leather of his jacket rubbing abrasively over the bare skin of her arms. “I know you do, Spike.”   
  
Pushing her against the gravestone behind her, he drawled huskily, “What do you want lil bit? You want me to give you a taste?”  
  
“Of what—“ She was cut off, as he kissed her, long and hard and deep, his tongue swirling past her shocked lips. Dawn had no thought, except one to kiss him back, and he growled into her mouth, his hands tugging on her hair, as the rain cried against their flesh. It hurt her scalp, but she embraced the pain and stepped fully into him, her body tightening as he ripped off her flimsy shirt in one quick movement.  
  
Standing before him, her breasts bare and pebbled with goose bumps, Dawn shivered, whispering, “Kiss me again. Please, Spike. Make me forget.”  
  
Holding her close, he murmured, “I’ll make you forget.”  
  
He didn’t know then that she didn’t just mean her sister. But it was enough, because she knew he wanted to forget too. He kissed her again, and his fingers touched her nipples and it was cold and hot and *raw* all at once. As she unbuckled his jeans, she felt him swell under her insistent hands and remembered hundreds of other swollen men who had groaned just like him. Kneeling down, she palmed the heaviness of him and imagined it inside her, feeling the emptiness and wetness dripping against her underwear, much like the rain.  
  
“Please, *please*,” she muttered, clinging to his arms and he laughed against her neck, easing inside her one inch at a time, and as Dawn felt the blood, she bit his shoulder with sharp teeth and absorbed his gasps with her mouth.   
  
He whispered her name, and she heard it over the thunder and it was like cracks of brilliant lightening and Spike was *inside* her, and she forgot.  
  
She forgot just a little.  
  
\+ + +  
  
The rain pours now, and it’s heavy drops remind her too much of that night. Closing her eyes, Dawn touches the inner part of her elbows, which remember his kisses. For a second she considers walking out into the downpour and drowning herself in memories, but remembers just in time that would Anya would gladly kill her should she ruin this dress.   
  
“What’re you thinking of, pet?” a familiar voice rasps next to her ear, and she doesn’t turn.  
  
“Nothing,” she replies petulantly. Being a brat comes easily to her, and it’s an act that surprisingly, they all believe.  
  
“Stop that,” he chides her, and yet she still doesn’t spin around to face her lover.  
  
“I don’t see any reason to act like my cheery self,” she says to him. “No one has fun at weddings…” pausing, she asks, “Why aren’t you somewhere staring at my sister? Isn’t that where you’d rather be?”  
  
Hands slide over her slender hips and she breathes out in a rush.   
  
“If I wanted to be with your sister, don’t you think I would be?” he drawls. “What’s with the bitch act, pet? Forgetting I know you?”  
  
“You don’t know me,” Dawn tells him, absently, the rain mesmerizing her. “I’ve lived even longer than you, Spike.”  
  
He laughs low. “Maybe you have, at that, Dawnie. But you told me yourself, you lived all those lives with me. So I think I know you best, don’t I pet?”  
  
“Shut up,” she whispers. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to be with you.”  
  
“You’re mine,” he bites off, his fingers on her thighs now, curving into the dress, until it slips between her legs. “You belong to me, Dawn.”  
  
“No,” she moans, thinking that it’s true, and she knows it’s true, and that makes it all the more horrible. She has lived hundreds of lives with him, and this one will be no exception. Thousands of kisses and thousands of years and thousands of rainy nights filled with screams and she loves him, she *loves* him… and it’s all going to end badly. She’s only supposed to be fifteen. Everyone believes she’s fifteen. She just wishes she could believe it too.  
  
“Yes,” he hisses, and drawing her back against him, he slips them both into the darkened alcove to the right, and just outside of the door. Turning her around, he looks down into her eyes. “Forget that I fucked your sister.” Leaning close, he licks down her jawline, leaving a wet trail behind. “We’ve done things she’s never even *dreamt* about, haven’t we lil bit?”  
  
Dawn groans helplessly, gripping his jacket with such a ferocity that her fingers creak. When he kisses her and drowns his tongue in her mouth, she responds with a devastating hunger, making him pant and hold her to him with a desperation that only she can match. She knows he loves her. Knows he barely has a choice.   
  
Knows that neither of them do.  
  
\+ + +  
  
Dawn remembers thousands of years.  
  
The monks lied to her sister. A small lie, one they no doubt thought would bring her some peace. They told her the Key had only been put in human form *once*.  
  
A small lie.  
  
But Dawn lives with it everyday.  
  
Hundreds of hearts beat in her chest. Sometimes at night, she dreams that they erupt and break her rib cage, spraying the room with blood. Voices speak through her mouth, that only she can hear. Women she was once. Women she wonders if she will become- when this fifteen-year-old body grows old and dies.   
  
She remembers them all. Remembers *being* them. Feeling their hurts, screaming at their pain, weeping their tears, bleeding with their crimson veins. The crisscross of veins across her breasts aren’t her own, the small scar on the ball of her right foot comes from another soul. She sometimes thinks that even her eyes have seen too much, and will someday expire.  
  
((A noblewoman when Queen Elizabeth 1 was in power. Her name was Bella Wyndham. Her tightly corseted waist made breathing difficult. Sometimes she would sing for the court, as her voice was sweet and clear. Some said she had the sight, for she appeared to know far more than she should, at her age.   
  
She had a lover.  
  
Blond, pale, a poet. It was no simple affair, no simple excuse for a dalliance. No, she loved him. No, she adored him.))  
  
((An American actress in the twenties. Her stage name was Jessamyn Winters, but he simply called her “Jess.” Sometimes when she donned Ophelia’s robes, she imagined what water would feel like closing over her head. Every day was a torment, every night was a release. Applause made her happy, and adulation brought a flush to her cheeks. Sometimes she had women as lovers, sometimes men.  
  
Her only love was blond, pale, a poet. He had fangs and made her bleed.))  
  
((A harem girl in Constantinople with only one name, “Narissa”. She existed solely to please her master. Days spent in the baths, with creams and lotions and other women who would sooner poison you than be your friend. She dreamed of death and knew no other life. Her master made her sing, but her voice cracked so he whipped her.   
  
Every night, she ran to the outskirts of the palace, with the aid of a friendly guard.  
  
There, she met her lover.  
  
Blond, pale, a prince who wove words with his tongue that spoke only of her beauty. He made her live forever, until one day, she escaped the walls of the harem, and met the sun.))  
  
Yes, Dawn remembers them all. They are *her*. She knows they all had a sister. The Slayer. None knew they were the Key, and so it all went smoothly, until the day Dawn stumbled upon the book, which told her who she was.  
  
And her sister died.  
  
The Slayer died.  
  
So she took a lover.  
  
Blond, pale, a poet. Sometimes he made her bleed, and sometimes he made her forget.   
  
She loves him. She adores him.   
  
He tried to escape with her sister, but he knows as well as she does, that their history is inescapable, and so he comes inside her, and kisses her, and they both remember. Thousands of nights, and girls, and lives.   
  
History has written their future, together.  
  
\+ + +  
  
Spike holds her close for a moment, and Dawn buries her face against the cool skin of his neck, the pounding of the rain echoing the throb of her temples and belly. Soon she will go inside and play the role of the bratty little sister. It’s what the Monks would have wanted, it’s what her ancestors would have deemed wise. Glory may be gone, and she may be the last… but she is still the Key.   
  
And Spike is still her lover.  
  
He looks down at her, and Dawn touches his cheek.   
  
“William,” she whispers, wondering how long they will have before the memories drive her insane. Until he has to stay the knife at her wrist, or the rope at her neck. Until she succeeds and does what all the Keys of the past have done.   
  
Until she finds out exactly why her sister misses Heaven.   
  
“William,” she says again, gently, and then walks inside, knowing he will follow her.    
  


~Finis


End file.
